Weihnachten, Sylvester, & Bombs

Real candles (and real tree)

Hallo!

Winter break started off with a jolt here when we heard of the attack at the Christmas market in Berlin on the last day of school. Having been to a few in Oldenburg and Bremen, I know it can be difficult just to get to the next booth in a crowded Christmas market, let alone dive out of the way of a moving truck. Other than that, we enjoyed a pretty laid-back winter break. Their oldest son, Kevin, came back from studying in Thailand for Christmas, so we got to celebrate it with him. He is studying in English, and immediately started speaking to me in English, which no German has done to me for quite a while and felt kind of weird. He soon realized my German was sufficient, though, and switched back.

On Christmas Eve, we had a steak dinner and then went to the local church to sing German Christmas carols. It’s that evening (the 24th) that we open our presents from each other, instead of the morning of the 25th. I kind of missed waking up to stockings, but it was also very nice and relaxed unwrapping presents and drinking/eating until the early morning hours. Also, it meant I got to sleep in on Christmas morning. On Christmas Day, my host mother cooked a roast goose, which we ate with Rotkohl (cooked red cabbage), Kartoffelkloesse (Bavarian potato dumplings), cooked pears with cranberry sauce, and other fried potato things which I forget the name of. It was all so delicious I’ll probably have to come back here for Christmas dinner every year!

Christmas dinner

Glory Bowl

Over Christmas break I also made my host family Glory Bowl (Shuswap Pie Co.), which turned out pretty well. Pam adored it (she loves those kind of healthy things), although I think Rainer prefers more meat and potatoes.

The big park & hotel in Bremen

For Sylvester (New Year’s), we went to a large park in Bremen where they had a huge firework display in front of the grand hotel. (I don’t have a picture at night of the fireworks, but here’s the hotel in the daylight.) Fabiola and I stayed in Bremen overnight the next few days, and went ice skating as well as to the airport to say goodbye to some exchange students we knew who were flying home (Australia and New Zealand). That was really sad, and also felt very weird being at the airport and seeing the exact spot where I stood when Pam and Rainer came to meet me for the first time. The place had a completely different atmosphere.

Another thing in the local news here was that an explosive from WWII was recently found floating in the Nordsee (North sea), which experts had to deal with to remove/detonate. Not a mine, but a bomb that allied planes would drop into the ocean on their way back from Germany, when they had some left over (they couldn’t land with the bombs). Our German tutor said that it’s much better now because they have the plans from the allies, who kept track of where they dropped the leftover bombs. But still, 70 years after the war and she said they’re still finding explosives and mines everywhere, for example when they are digging to install wind turbines or such.
In other news, it finally snowed, and it is staying! It finally feels like winter for me. Especially now that I’ll soon be skiing on the Rotary Ski Trip to Austria next week! Speaking of which, I need to start packing.

Bis spaeter!

Hannah